Hollywood studios have also trained dogs to ferret out illicit DVD-making plants.

The Rhode Island state police are showing off their latest tool to combat child pornography: Thoreau, a golden Labrador.

The K-9 has been trained to ferret out gadgets, such as thumb drives and hard drives, that might contain kiddie porn. Thoreau is trained to identify scents such as metals and other components found in these gadgets. The dog can then help the authorities find concealed digital storage materials at residences of those suspected of possessing child pornography.

Dogs can be trained to find a variety of odors, including the smell of optical discs. The Motion Picture Association of America, for example, has deployed dogs that can smell polycarbonates used in DVDs to help bust locations where huge caches of copyrighted content are being stored or produced.

Last month, Thoreau found his first thumb-drive while on assignment. Houston recently demonstrated the dog's nose in a test run for the Providence Journal.

"Show me. Show me," the handler tells the dog.

Thoreau furiously sniffed shelves, desks, cabinets. The dog located a hard drive inside a Ziploc bag in the upper shelf of a desk. A flash drive and thumb drive were also found, with the dog zeroing in on their location down to the exact drawer. In exchange, Thoreau got food.

David Kravets / The senior editor for Ars Technica. Founder of TYDN fake news site. Technologist. Political scientist. Humorist. Dad of two boys. Been doing journalism for so long I remember manual typewriters with real paper.